


sea skin

by sarcangel



Series: tumblr ficlets [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, Selkies, Zayn is the selkie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 23:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17212904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcangel/pseuds/sarcangel
Summary: a boat, zouis, selkie!zayn





	sea skin

**Author's Note:**

> just me on my enchanted animal bullshit!

Shedd offers a lunchtime discount, and it’s the best place Louis knows within a 3 block radius of the office to eat lunch, especially on Wednesdays - the aquarium is usually dead, no field trips or long weekend tourists, and so he can eat his sandwich in peace and quiet, fuck you very much.  

Louis’ not the world’s most observant person, but it hits him after probably the third week in a row that someone else is always there, too. The other guy usually eats over by the otter exhibit, out of a brown paper bag just like him - close enough to catch out of the corner of his eye, maybe exchange an awkward nod from time to time, but not close enough to talk. And that’s good, he talks enough all day; part of the appeal of fish, isn’t it?  They’re just...quiet.

But there’s never anyone with this guy, is the thing.  And he’s hot, eyelashes for days, ink in all the right places. It doesn’t make sense.

He’s packing up his lunch one day, wadding it all back into the bag, when movement catches his eye: silent lunch dude is walking up to the otter tank. He keeps walking until his face is pressed against it, and he just…stands there. And it’s crazy, but Louis swears he sees an otter stop right in front of the guy’s face, and touch its paw to the surface of the glass. But he blinks, and the man is walking away, and the otters are chasing each other like normal, and he probably should start going to bed earlier like he’s been talking about doing all year.

Next Wednesday, instead of packing a lunch, he has a pizza delivered to the aquarium. It’s one of the weirdest things he’s done - as an adult, anyway - not as weird as talking to otters, though. Adult life gives disappointingly few opportunities to be weird; you’ve got to seize the moment when you can.

The pizza box is warm in his hands, as he walks toward the exhibit. The otter whisperer doesn’t see him at first - he’s got his earbuds in and is just starting to open his bagged lunch.

He looks up when he sees Louis’ feet right under his nose.

“Can I help you?” he asks, pulling an earbud out. Polite, not overly friendly - but not unfriendly, either. His eyes are brown and he shapes his vowels just slightly strangely, not quite an accent, but different.

“I ordered pizza,” Louis says. “Don’t mean to interrupt you, but I thought -“ He hefts the box in explanation.  “We could share it?”

 

***

 

“I didn’t know,” Louis says, exhaling up into the night sky. The trace of smoke in his throat is sweet and scratchy, familiar. He bites down on a cough.

“Know what?” Zayn turns his head to look at him; his eyes are dark pools in the unlit boat.

“The water,” Louis waves his hand.  It’s less effective, since he’s laying down. “That you can’t swim.”

Zayn hands the joint back. “Boat’s fine, though.” His vowels have shifted a little bit, like they’re too round for his mouth.

A trickle of sweat snakes its way down Louis’ chest. Alan from work invited them up to his lake house for the weekend, though they’ve escaped it for the moment. July is an endless press of humidity, he’s always uncomfortable. Wanting Zayn is another thing, on top of the sweat and mosquitos; an actual fucking itch that’s lodged somewhere under his breastbone. Unreachable, persistent.

“Tell me a story,” Louis says, a while after the joint is gone.

They’re still stretched out on the bottom of the boat, cool breeze from the lake offering faint relief. The Big Dipper hangs cheerfully right above them; the sky is so clear here, just a few hours north of the city.

Zayn clears his throat.  When he starts to talk, his voice is slow and thick, maple syrup.  “Once upon a time -“

“You fucker,” Louis reaches over to punch him, but Zayn grabs his hand, instead.

“ _Once upon a time,”_ he starts again, peeling open Louis’ fist. “There was a boy who lived in the water. Not just a boy, his whole family, like. They swam, and played, and caught fish. And nights like tonight…” he trails off, playing with Louis’ fingertips.

He never knew it, that all of his nerve-endings could concentrate in his fingers like that. He scoots closer to Zayn, who keeps looking up at the sky.

“Nights like tonight?” Louis prompts.

“They’d shed their skins and come out of the sea to lay on the rocks, and tell stories. Dumb stories mostly: The Fish Who Got Away, the Witch of Kelp Forest, that kind of thing. And one night -“ he slides his fingers into Louis’, holding his hand loosely.

His heart’s beating overtime, but he’s hanging onto Zayn’s voice, spinning some kind of web around them where they’re stopped in the middle of Lake Geneva.

“One night, they got caught.” Zayn’s voice is quiet now, barely louder than the small waves lapping the sides of the boat. Party noises float over the water, disjointed laughter and music from the pontoon that passed them half an hour ago. “A scientist came upon them, laying out on the rocks, sea skins piled in a heap on the shore. The boy ran at him, so his sisters could get away. In his fear, the man dropped most of the skins.” His hand tightens around Louis’ now, and the skin of Zayn’s palm is tough and textured. “Except the boy’s.  The boy’s, he kept.”

Zayn tugs his hand, so he rolls over. Nose to nose, body buzzing with the night and the weed, Zayn’s story pulling at his heart like a balloon on a string, he forces out the question, though he’s half-sure of the answer already.

“What happened to the boy?”

Zayn moves closer, his mouth a half-inch from Louis’.  “He grew up.”

 

[tumblr post ](https://dinoflangellate.tumblr.com/post/181488683018/shedd-offers-a-lunchtime-discount-and-its-the) [:)](https://sarcathlon.tumblr.com/post/181488683018/shedd-offers-a-lunchtime-discount-and-its-the)


End file.
